


memory

by ratworm



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, gaster is like. not existing., it's just him there's no one else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 11:15:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18222401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratworm/pseuds/ratworm
Summary: not remembering him doesn't stop him from missing him.





	memory

**Author's Note:**

> this document is titled 'have a shitty little depressing oneshot because it really do be like that sometimes' lmao.
> 
> i have never done music recs for a fic and it's not connected to the story but listen. listen to me. listen to mitski. you won't regret it. trust in these words i am typing. her music slaps SO hard and it bops but with lonely sad vibes and yea. good shit. 
> 
> two of her most popular songs are [nobody](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qooWnw5rEcI) and [francis forever](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7IOaL3U9jM) (which was in adventure time)
> 
> (also @ my one irl who knows my ao3: if you're reading this i beg of you to never mention it ever. please.)

Sans had always been a very private person. He kept himself to himself, didn’t like anyone to analyze or scrutinize what was his business, and his alone. 

Most his things were safe, in his warzone of a room. Journals, photo albums, letters- all stored in the draws of his chaotic desk, with barely an inch of space on the top that you could actually use to do work.

But he kept his most private, special things in a certain drawer in a certain locked lab. Honestly, he wasn’t entirely sure why they were special to him, he just knew that whenever he looked at the binder of photos and files, he felt such a strong wave of _‘this is precious’_ wash over him, he couldn’t bring himself to not treat it with care.

Inside the binder there were sheets upon sheets of paper. They were written in some strange hieroglyphic text that Sans felt would take him days, if not weeks to decode, but if he read it without putting a second of thought to the letters themselves, he could read it as if it were written in comic sans.

The pages were scientific notes about all sorts of topics, most on the CORE, the magical blasters he could summon, and something called the anomaly that seemed to toy with timelines like a child would with dolls.

The photos were what he valued the most though. There was one specific photo in the album that made his heart clench when he looked at it.

In the photo was him and Alphys, looking a few years younger, and someone else. 

He couldn’t tell who it was. 

He could look at every part of the image but the face. They were tall and thin, wearing a lab coat over a grey turtleneck. Dressed formally, but not overly so. But when he looked into the face, he could see the shape, the colors, but he couldn’t put the details together. His brain just blanked. The more he stared at it, the more he felt the buzzing static grow, painfully pressing on the inside of his skull, dizzying him, vision going blurry.

One time he forced himself to stare at them as long as he could.

He woke up with the photo clutched limply in his hand.

He wondered who they were. He felt like he had a connection to this stranger, like he missed them without even knowing their name. 

Sometimes he thought of making up little stories about them. Little daydreams about this random person, with no base for who they were but ‘formally dressed scientist.’ He hoped they were a kind person. He hoped he would meet them.

Often, his daydreams were accompanied by the ache of the static. A little too close to the truth, perhaps.

He was okay with it. (I mean, he wasn’t really. He wanted to know so badly, felt an absence in his soul when he looked at the photo and he needed to be filled by knowing- but he'd accepted that he wouldn’t know.)

Sans had never been a forgetful person, but sometimes he thinks he's become one. 

Sometimes he'll wake up at an early 8am on the dot, as if routine, get out of bed, dressed and ready to start a busy day- but there was no busy day to start. He was only a sentry. The job didn't start til noon. 

Sometimes he'll type out 'goodnight' into the text bar of his phone before scrolling to find the contact he wants to send it to, only to realize there’s none, wondering why he ever opened his phone in the first place. The only person he was close enough to text goodnight was Papyrus these days, and why would he text his brother when he was simply in the room next door?

Sometimes he'll be at the dump, going through the trash that had fallen in from the world above. Maybe he'll find a car magazine and a cookbook, slipping it into a bag to give to his brother. Maybe he'll find a few DVDs of a cartoon and a somehow unbroken bottle of liquor, placed carefully in the bag for Alphys and Grillby respectively. 

Maybe he'll see a magazine about the planets and space that he already had, and a pair of dark purple gloves, and a science fiction novel. He’ll put them into the bag with the hint of a smile pulling at the edge of his mouth, then stop. Maybe he’d slowly take them out of the bag, replacing them in the pile. Maybe he’ll bring them home, leaving them uselessly on the floor of his room to collect dust. He didn’t know why he picked them up in the first place.

Sometimes he dreams of static buzz. Not the ache in his head, but all around him; it feels like being wrapped in the warmest, fluffiest, comfiest blanket and being suffocated all at once.

From those dreams, he awakes with a numbness around the soul, cloying and thick, with the quiet whispers of what is no longer real ringing in his ears. 

He can’t tell what they’re saying.

**Author's Note:**

> hope yall enjoyed!! 
> 
> (tbh i think sans forgetting gaster would have similar effects to the voidfish from taz with the static from forgetting shit but maybe im just emo.)
> 
> i have like. 3k of a 'sans falls into the core instead' fic written and 1k of some post-pacifist saving gaster thing bc i am WEAK for that. i also wanna write an 'imaginary friend' gaster au thingy cause yea. hopefully they'll exist soon!! 
> 
> bye ttyl my undertale sideblog is [mrsansundertale](https://mrsansundertale.tumblr.com/)


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